Wind flow around rectangular obstacles with aspect ratio

It has long been studied about the flow around bluff bodies, but the effect of aspect ratio on the sharp-edged bodies in thick turbulent boundary layers is still argued. The author investigates the flow characteristics around a series of rectangular bodies (40d × 80w × 80 h, 80d × 80w × 80h and 160d × 80w × 80h in mm) placed in a deep turbulent boundary layer. The study is aiming to identify the extant Reynolds number independence of the rectangular bodies and furthermore understand the surface pressure distribution around the bodies such as the suction pressure in the leading edge, when the shape of bodies is changed, responsible for producing extreme suction pressures around the bluff bodies. The experiments are carried out at three different Reynolds numbers, based on the velocity U at the body height h, of 24,000, 46,000 and 67,000, and large enough that the mean boundary layer flow is effectively Reynolds number independent. The experiment includes wind tunnel work with the velocity and surface pressure measurements. The results show that the generation of the deep turbulent boundary layer in the wind tunnel and the surface pressure around the bodies were all independent of Reynolds number and the longitudinal length, but highly dependent of the transverse width.